It is with great sadness that the National Endowment for the Arts acknowledges the passing of former National Council on the Arts member and National Medal of Arts recipient James Earl Jones. Long before he was the voice of Star Wars’ Darth Vader and The Lion King’s Mufasa, Jones was an acclaimed actor of stage and screen.

One of the NEA’s early grants was an award to Arena Stage in 1967 to support the development of Howard Sackler’s The Great White Hope, which went on to be a huge hit on Broadway as well as major motion picture. Both play and film starred Jones and future NEA Chair Jane Alexander, with both winning Tony Awards for their performances (and the play itself receiving a Tony). Jones was the the first Black to win a Tony for Best Actor. He was also nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in the 1970 film version of the play.

The success of his performance in the play and film led to a long career in theater, film, and television, garnering two Tony Awards, two Emmy Awards, a Grammy Award, and an honorary Academy Award, among other honors. Jones was lauded for his versatility. He was a renowned Shakespearean actor who also performed in many plays with mostly Black casts, such as a Broadway revival of On Golden Pond, The Blacks, and August Wilson’s Fences.

Jones continued working in theater into his 80s, and in 2022 the Cort Theatre on Broadway was renamed the James Earl Jones Theatre in his honor. In 1992, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President George H. W. Bush. 

Jones had a long association with the NEA. Jones was appointed to the NEA’s advisory board, the National Council on the Arts, and served from 1970 to 1976. Jones’ sonorous bass voice was put to good use for a couple of the NEA’s major initiatives. In 2003, the NEA began the initiative Shakespeare in American Communities to bring Shakespeare to audiences and schools across the United States. The NEA produced free educational materials for teachers to use, including audio CDs and films in which Jones participated. The materials were distributed to teachers and librarians and reached more than 24 million students. Jones also provided his voice to an audio CD for the Poetry Out Loud initiative, a national poetry recitation contest for high school students.